


If You're Watching This...

by AnnaofAza



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Musing, Post Episode s2e01: The Man Who Saved Central City, Presumably Unrequited Love, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-09
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-12 16:44:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5673130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaofAza/pseuds/AnnaofAza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barry goes out running and tries to figure out why Wells confessed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You're Watching This...

After his dad’s coming home party—which turned out to be his going away party instead—Barry volunteered to clean up, which took no time at all, and excused himself, telling Joe that he was going out jogging. It was a blatant lie, and both of them knew it, but Joe had simply nodded and told him to call if he needed help. Iris had asked him if he wanted to talk—her look of devastation after Barry revealed the truth of his dad’s early exit was still in his mind—but Barry told her that he just needed to clear his head. 

As soon as Barry was out the door, he started running.

It wasn’t like the euphoric, lightning-charged speed he was used to as The Flash. It was the mundane sort of jogging that made his feet pound heavily on the ground, the pressure making him concentrate on the beating of his heart and just the the feeling of going somewhere.No frantic rush of danger and panic in his chest. No worries or strategies clamoring around for space in his head. No Cisco or Caitlin in his ear. No W—

Barry tried to push the thought away, but he couldn't. He'd tried. Whenever a mention of him or even his name came up, Barry had closed his ears. Whenever a smell of a Big Belly burger or an image of Wells' approving smile lingered, Barry threw it away like swiping a useless piece of investigative information into the trash can. Whenever he remembered Wells' betrayal and the world whisking from underneath his feet and time being ripped and Eddie's death, Barry ran. 

He'd spent so much time in his head, and a familiar mantra began: _Liar. Betrayer. Evil._ Dr. Wells had purposely killed his mother, stalked him for fifteen years, blew up the particle accelerator and destroyed so many lives for a ticket home, and lied to Caitlin and Cisco and Joe and Barry without blinking. Barry had trusted this man—with his life—and it shattered at his feet. But still, even after his suspicions, his and Joe's investigation, the discovery of the secret room with the yellow suit—he still wanted to know why. Maybe there was some sort of logical explanation, some mistake, something that proved—proved what? 

Wells wasn't innocent. He wasn't even Wells. He was Eobard Thawne, from some distant future that had slit the Harrison Wells apart and took his skin and his life. He was a killer, a manipulator, and—he was gone. 

Gone. 

_Gone._

Barry had accepted it enough to swallow it down and try to move on. But the reveal of the testimony had yanked the world from underneath his running feet. Wells had sat there and _confessed._

He didn’t have to, and yet—and yet—Wells wouldn’t have to if he hadn’t killed his mom in the first place, but Barry wondered. He could have let the case remain dead, allowed his dad to rot away in Iron Heights for the rest of his life, and denied Barry the justice he'd been seeking since he was eleven years old. The last piece of the puzzle had died with him. 

It came down to the question Barry had been turning over in his head for months: was it genuine, or part of his big ploy? 

It drove him mad, trying to analyze every single conversation he had with the man. He remembered encouragement and advice and smiles, but also moments where Wells had pulled away, had been secretive and suspicious, and had been carefully dismissive. Nothing seemed to add up. There was no algorithm for how Wells’ mind worked—and look at him, still not calling him Eobard Thawne, Eddie’s relative, by a liar’s name. 

He then slowed down, his pace decreasing little by little, until he was walking. 

What was wrong with him? 

His dad was back—but not with him. He'd helped save the city—but with deaths on his shoulder. It seemed that whenever his happiness came with a condition: something that brutally sneered, _yeah, but._

Barry wasn't out of breath—not even close—but he felt like he wanted to sit down. The adrenaline from the past events had finally crashed. 

_My name is Harrison Wells, and being of sound mind and body, I freely confess to the murder of Nora Allen..._

When had he recorded it? When had he decided this? When had he elected to stop—to stop ruining Barry's life more than it already had been? Barry couldn't picture it. 

Was it a debt that Barry would have to pay, in one way or another? Another chess move that Barry won't see coming? 

But what motive did Wells have when he was dead? 

_I'm not the thing you hate._

Barry had noticed Wells had removed his glasses at the beginning of the recording, like letting the mask finally be removed. He'd addressed him familiarly— _Barry_ —and had been honest in a way he'd never truly been.   

Then he'd replaced the glasses before starting his confession, as if taking on the persona once again, of the thing Barry hated. 

But...did Barry hate him? Did Wells truly resent him all time? 

Fifteen years of hate. _All for nothing,_ Wells had said. Barry had failed, in a twisted way. He never got Eobard home. But... _We were never truly enemies._

Wells had said, back then, that he'd felt...pride and...and...

Love. 

 _No._ Barry thought. _No, no, no, stop. I hate you. I hate you._

 _It won't matter. You'll never be truly happy, Barry Allen._ Breathless, sincere, saying his name like...it was the last time. _I know you._

Wells had known Barry wouldn't had been able to forgive him. 

And Barry resented it, the way it still ate at him. 

 _You can't be betrayed by someone if you hadn't trusted in the first place._ Barry's feelings that developed for Wells were real, but he hadn't really known Wells. Wells had the power, the whip, the knowledge. He would have laughed at Barry, back then, or—realistically—made excuses and pushed him aside. 

His goal was to kill Barry. No more. 

But Wells had seemed surprised back then, like he couldn't believe his confession. Did he mean for this to happen? To be affected by the people around him? To have it be real—then snatched away because of the circumstances, his own terrible choices? 

It was useless to think about. Wells wasn't coming back. It was over. 

But Barry didn't want to hate him. He couldn't. 

And Barry was tired of running. 

**Author's Note:**

> I just got into this ship. I don't know how, and Barry's trying to figure out this whole situation along with me. Sorry, kid, but we're both confused on this one.


End file.
